


Colours and Promises

by Sanjuno



Series: Ideas of March 2018 [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Adult Tobirama is still a shameless flirt, Also it's borderline, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Does anyone even remember what a songfic is?, I'm kinda thinking that the Great Evil was Zetsu, It's been ten years since the Great Evil was defeated, Literary cotton candy, M/M, Madara's Hero Name was Phoenix, Nobody likes Zetsu, Plus Madara plays the piano, SO MUCH FLUFF, Sort of but not really a Miraculous Ladybug fusion-verse, Teenage Tobirama was a shameless flirt, This is one of very few universes where Tobirama can pull off 'suave', To be fair Madara is unfairly pretty, Tobirama's Hero Name was Dragon, Which basically made him Chat Noir, Which basically made him Ladybug, does this count as a songfic?, fuck that guy, this is the fluffiest fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 16:31:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15343890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanjuno/pseuds/Sanjuno
Summary: Senju Tobirama found love in a coffee shop...There was only one person Senju Tobirama had ever loved, and he would never forsake them. No matter how long he had to wait in order to find them again.The best part of living is finding new reasons to fall in love with the same person all over again.





	Colours and Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RinRin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RinRin/gifts).



> This was originally posted on my tumblr as part of a prompt round back in March. As it is, I'm putting it in the basket of "cool AU ideas I may revisit at a later date". 
> 
> ... even though I've kinda already spoiled the ending by writing the epilogue first. *deadpan* Whoops.

=/=

Senju Tobirama found love in a coffee shop...

It was a quiet little place, tucked away from the main streets away from the worst of the traffic that afflicted the university town Tobirama had begun to call home. The shop’s claim to fame was their authentic European Style coffees and the well-trained baristas. Sure, the clientele tended to be caffeine snobs and liberal arts students, but the atmosphere was always calm and the background music was always a soft instrumental piece. No babble of voices to distract him or assault his senses.

It was the perfect place to relax when Tobirama wanted to de-stress but was not quite at the point where he tried to block out the entire world. People were interesting, for the most part. Tobirama just preferred not having to put up with the endless cacophony that tended to accompany the masses of humanity he had to wade through day after day. His students were bad enough, and Tobirama was legally allowed to tell them all to shut up while he was talking.

Too many voices gave Tobirama a headache. From the bright neon of the pop music blasted from every speaker, to the oil slick shades of the radio ads, to the clashing hues of ignorance and arrogance coming from the hundreds of different conversations Tobirama walked by every day. It was jarring and uncomfortable, but it was a fact of his life that Tobirama had learned to put up with. Mostly by finding little places like this coffee shop where he could hide away from the world without looking like or having to admit that he was hiding.

Tobirama was putting away his pen and tapping his papers to line up the edges, finally done with his grading, when somebody sat down at the piano in the corner. It was mostly a decor piece, but sometimes there was a live music event so the instrument was kept in tune. The cautious way the man played a test scale told Tobirama that there was doubt, and the way stiff shoulders relaxed showed relief when the scale played clean. The scale shifted smoothly into an opening bridge and Tobirama frowned to himself.

It was time to leave. After the day he had suffered through, Tobirama really was _not_ in the mood for amateur music hour. At least his grading was done, so he could just finish his coffee and pack up without appearing rude.

“ _... Hearts beat fast... colours and promises... How to be brave? How can I love when I’m afraid... to fall...”_  Chest seizing, heart in his throat, Tobirama whipped his head around to stare at the pianist. That  _voice_. It was... it was brilliant shades of carmine passion and scarlet temper. A voice threaded with stark white honesty and royal blue confidence. A voice softened with tones of pale lilac tenderness and the dusky mauve of unexpected kindnesses. Tobirama gripped the strap of his bag, sinking back into the armchair he had occupied for the last hour and refused to take his eyes away from a man he had never thought to see alive again. “ _But watching you stand alone… all of my doubt... suddenly goes away somehow... one step closer..._ ”

The music swelled and Tobirama flashed back to the last time he had heard this voice singing this very song. High above the busy streets they stood together on the top of a bridge support looking out at the waters of the bay near his childhood home. “ _I have died everyday waiting for you... darling don’t be afraid I have loved you... for a thousand years... I’ll love you for a thousand more..._ ”

“You’re alive...” To quiet to hear over the strains of the piano, but Tobirama had to say it. Had to make it  _real_. It had been over a decade, but Tobirama had never managed to find a voice that came anywhere close to the one he had fallen in love with as a younger man. Tobirama had never seen the face that beloved voice belonged to, and had never been granted the chance to learn his partner’s name, but they had saved the world together once.

“ _Time stands still... beauty in all he is... I will be brave... I will not let anything take away... what’s standing in front of me..._ ” It was a victory that had come at great personal cost. Tobirama still had the scars from that final fight, the marks from the power he had channeled in his desperation branded so deep the remnants showed on his skin even after the power transformation was lost to him. Tobirama could still remember the blood and the grey hopelessness stealing away the colours he loved. The sight of Firebird’s back where he stood in front of Tobirama, the red and gold of his partner’s armour growing dark and sticky around the bone-white spears stabbed all the way through Firebird’s chest. “ _Every breath... every hour has come to this... one step closer..._ ”

His hair was longer, Tobirama noted through the lightheaded feeling of relief. So much longer than it had been when they were teenagers. Another memory rose up, a memory of his own hands carding through soft, feathery black. “ _I have died everyday waiting for you... darling don’t be afraid I have loved you... for a thousand years... I’ll love you for a thousand more..._ ”

/.../ 

"You would look nice if you grew it out.” Firebird froze in place as Dragon’s pearl enameled fingers slid into his shoulder length hair, fluffing the already wild mess even further out. “You’ve got the kind of bone structure that would look nice with long hair.”

“Are you joking right now?” A sardonic laugh escaped with the disbelieving response from the other hero, sharp edges of slate blue determination and steel grey duty. “This isn’t an anime, Dragon. It’s bad enough we’re forced to fight in these ridiculous getups. I won't give our enemies something _else_ to use as a handhold on me!”

“After we win, then.” Drawing his hands back reluctantly and meeting Firebird’s confused head tilt with all the confidence he could muster, Dragon lifted his chin. “After we win, grow out your hair as long as you can. I want to see how it looks.”

/.../

“ _And all along I believed I would find you... time has brought your heart to me... I have loved you for a thousand years... I’ll love you for a thousand more... one step closer..._ ” Spirits, of all the ways for Tobirama to find the love of his life again, was it even  _possible_  to be more clichéd than hearing Firebird singing a love song to himself? It was one of their running jokes, back then. Dragon had always been able to find Firebird by following the sound of singing across the rooftops of the city they protected from evil. “ _One step closer..._ ”

“You’re here.” The shock was finally wearing off, and Tobirama could feel the usual do or die determination that drove him forward through most of his life rising up in his chest. Ten years he had mourned his partner as lost. Ten years with Tobirama unable to find the one he loved because they had sacrificed every scrap of mystic power they possessed to destroy their enemy’s hold on the world. They had cast the demon down, thrown it back into the abyss that spawned it and sealed up the wound in the world. It had cost them nearly everything, but they had done it. It had cost them _each other_ , but they had _done it._ “You’re alive and you’re _here_.”

“ _I have died every day waiting for you... darling don’t be afraid I have loved you... for a thousand years... I’ll love you for a thousand more..._ ” Dragon had seen Firebird run through, dying even as he used the only power that could save his life to destroy the evil they had been fighting nonstop for three years. The explosion had knocked him out, and Dragon had felt the last flicker of his lingering powers fling him away in an undirected teleport. He woke up on the edge of town, alone and scarred by the death of his powers and wholly mortal again after three years of being a hero. The only things that proved Tobirama had ever _been_ Dragon were the unnaturally even, bright red scars on his face the true colours that accompanied every human voice that reached his ears. “ _And all along I believed I would find you... time has brought your heart to me... I have loved you for a thousand years... I’ll love you for a thousand more..._ ”

The song was coming to a close, and Tobirama stood up. His bag was left behind at his table as he made his way over to the piano. The last few notes lingered on the air and Tobirama felt his heart kick in his chest. “A thousand years is a bit of an exaggeration, songbird.”

The dark head snapped up as the pianist twisted in his seat, staring at Tobirama with fury and something like anguish twisting his mouth into a snarl. “How dare you! You don’t get to call me that!”

“Shush.” Tobirama smiled and familiar, long missed colours flared up around the man yelling at him in a bonfire of intense emotion. “You grew out your hair for me.”

“I did not! I grew it out for-!” The scowling mouth went slack, narrow eyes growing wide as Tobirama gathered up a lock of fine black hair. He let his captured prize slide through his fingers just enough not to pull on it as he lifted his hand to his lips. Tobirama smiled at his partner over the dark strands tangled around his fingers. Spirits, Firebird was prettier without the mask than Tobirama had ever expected. Those lovely, thick lashed eyes were framed with scars that formed a familiar pattern of blood red tomoe. Hands that had danced over the piano ivories rose to trace the red gashes the showed so prominently in their turn on Tobirama’s pale skin. “... Dragon?”

“Hello, love. I told you I’d always be able to find you by your voice.” The choked laugh was incredulous, washed out yellow with shock and disbelief. Tobirama had spent a decade thinking this man was dead, and he refused to let another moment pass him by. Pulling his partner up, Tobirama wrapped one arm around his pretty bird’s waist and used the other hand to tilt the singers head for a kiss that had been far too long in coming. A shudder wracked the body in his arms, and the other man melted into Tobirama’s embrace with a helpless whine. Strong arms clutched at Tobirama’s back like he might be snatched away at any moment. Easing back, Tobirama licked his lips and tried to steady his racing heart. “My apologies. I should have asked first, but... gods and ancient powers, songbird. I missed you.”

“It’s not our first kiss, you stuck up prig. If I had objections I would have knocked you on your ass.” There was shaky breathing against his throat, and the words mumbled into his chest were thick with turquoise relief and pent up tears. “I _waited_ for you, even though… never mind. Get your things and take me home. We’ve got ten missed years to make up for.”

“Of course.” Tobirama pulled back, catching a falling hand in his own to lace their fingers together. “My name is Tobirama, by the way.”

Shock rippled across his songbird’s exposed face, and Tobirama could see the exact moment his partner realized that the magic that had kept them silent, that had kept them  _apart_  despite all their attempts to sidestep the ancient security restrictions, was gone. The pianist clung to Tobirama’s hand as they gathered their things, eyes still wide with delighted surprise.

“Tobirama...” His name had never produced such beautiful colours, ruby and gold like the colours of Firebird’s wings. They stepped out into the warm amber sunlight and Tobirama was dazzled as his partner grinned, wide and joyful. “My name is Madara.”

Perhaps it is more accurate to say Senju Tobirama found love once, and then lost it. But what is meant to be always finds it’s way back full circle. So love always comes back to those who give it.

Senju Tobirama found the love of his life in a coffee shop, and having lost him once before, held Madara tight for the rest of their lives and refused to let him go.

... But that is a story for another time.

=/=

**Author's Note:**

> The original prompt from tumblr was: _Idea of March thing: high school, coffee shop, secret identity, and music (aka a Disney Channel original movie?), with Tobirama and romantic feels?_
> 
> To which I replied "Oh man, I don’t think I ever watched a Disney Channel movie. Also this takes place when they’re older. But they met in high school? Does that count? I’m picturing this as being almost like the aftermath of a Miraculous Ladybug kind of adventure. Also I tried to make it romantic? I’m pretty sure I got the feels part right.
> 
> Also I may or may not have translated Tobirama’s sensor abilities into Daredevil levels of audial aphasia. Whoops."


End file.
